How Will Liberal Voters Rank Their Leadership Ballots?

The Liberal leadership race has been a bit of a sleepy affair so far, especially for those of us who live in Ontario and are distracted by the provincial election currently underway. But a new poll out from Mainstreet Research has finally given us something to talk about.

The poll was conducted from February 7–10, 2025. Unlike other polls put out about this race, this poll actively sought out Registered Liberals and screened out other contacts. That means the results of this poll are not a reflection of Canadian voters at large but of Liberals who are actually eligible to vote in the leadership race.

As usual, I won’t dive into the subscriber-only numbers. If you want those, you can pay the entirely reasonable subscription fee Mainstreet has put forward to access all their federal election related data in 2025. But what I will do is cover what the data is telling us with three weeks left in this race.

How Voting Works

The leadership ballot is a ranked ballot which means voters can rank the candidates in order of preference. The first round of counting will only include the top choices of all voters. At that point, if no candidate has secured a majority of the vote, the lowest performing candidate will be dropped off the ballot for subsequent counts.

However, every voter who ranked that candidate as their first choice will now have their support reallocated to the candidate they ranked second highest. This process will continue until a candidate wins a majority of voter support or there are two candidates left, forcing a head-to-head contest.

First Choices

The topline story here is obviously how each of the candidates are doing in terms of tracking first-round support. If one candidate has the support of the majority, the election will be over after one round of counting. But if that doesn’t happen, a candidate’s first-round support could also determine whether they move on to future rounds of counting or not.

Here’s how first-round support is currently shaking out:

1. Mark Carney
2. Chrystia Freeland (-9)
3. Karina Gould (-20)
4. Ruby Dhalla (-33)
5. Frank Baylis (-36)

Note: The negative numbers listed in parentheses represent the percentage each candidate trails the frontrunner in the list provided.

According to Mainstreet’s data, no candidate currently enjoys the support of a majority of eligible Liberal voters however Mark Carney enjoys a large lead over his opponents in first-choice rankings.

Second Choices

If the count moves on past the first round, the second choices of voters will become important during subsequent counts. In the second-round, votes will be reallocated for voters whose first choice is dropped from the ballot. Helpfully, Mainstreet has provided second-choice support information collected from these voters.

Here are the second-choice of the eligible voters, if their first choice were to be dropped from the ballot:

1. Mark Carney
2. Karina Gould (-14)
3. Chrystia Freeland (-19)
4. Frank Baylis (-32)
5. Ruby Dhalla (-34)

Note: The negative numbers listed in parentheses represent the percentage each candidate trails the frontrunner in the list provided.

What’s most interesting here is that Carney is not only the favourite candidate of a plurality of Liberal voters, he’s also the second choice of more voters who are backing other candidates. Also of interest is the fact that Karina Gould outperforms Freeland with voters when it comes to their second choice candidate.

Third Choices

If the count moves on past the second round, the third choices of some voters could come into play if their first and second choices have been dropped from the ballot. Helpfully, Mainstreet has provided third-choice support information, too.

Here are the third-choice of the eligible voters, if their first and second choices were to be dropped from the ballot:

1. Karina Gould
2. Chrystia Freeland (-10)
3. Mark Carney (-11)
4. Frank Baylis (-13)
5. Ruby Dhalla (-17)

Note: The negative numbers listed in parentheses represent the percentage each candidate trails the frontrunner in the list provided.

It makes sense that at this stage the frontrunner Mark Carney would begin to move down the list simply because he has the most first and second choice support. What’s interesting is that Chrystia Freeland, despite being in second when it comes to first-choice preferences, does not lead in second or third choice preferences.

Last Place Choices

When it comes to a ranked ballot, your last place choice can sometimes be almost as important as your first-place choice. That’s because if a race continues until it becomes a head-to-head, your last place choice will never receive a vote from you. Voting strategically, then, would require you to rank the candidate you want to win the least as the last of all available options. Mainstreet has also tracked this information, asking eligible Liberal voters which candidate they will not support.

Here’s how last-round support is currently shaking out:

1. Karina Gould
2. Mark Carney (-4)
3. Frank Baylis (-6)
4. Chrystia Freeland (-11)
5. Ruby Dhalla (-29)

Note: The negative numbers listed in parentheses represent the percentage each candidate trails the frontrunner in the list provided.

In this case, Karina Gould is the candidate most voters object to the least to while Dhalla is the candidate the fewest voters would support on any round of balloting. Freeland, while the second most popular candidate as a first choice, is also the second-to-last choice for more voters than anyone but Dhalla.

Second-Round Support

If the first-round of voting were to happen exactly as the data suggests, Frank Baylis would be dropped off the ballot first and not have the chance to leapfrog Ruby Dhalla with his stronger later-round support. Once second-round counting begins, his first-round supporters would instead have their votes reallocated to their second choices.

Helpfully, Mainstreet also provided data on how much of each candidate’s first-round support would move to each of the other candidates, should they be dropped from the ballot.

Here’s how second-round support is currently shaking out:

1. Mark Carney
2. Chrystia Freeland (-9)
3. Karina Gould (-21)
4. Ruby Dhalla (-33)

Most of Baylis’ supporters would move to Dhalla while a smaller number would move to Gould. No candidate would have a majority in this round of counting and Dhalla would then be dropped off the ballot.

Third-Round Support

As it stands, the only way for a candidate who is in third on the first count to move up in subsequent counts is if a) there are enough voters from the two dropped candidates to make up the gap with the second place candidate b) the third place candidate is ranked second for most if not all of voters supporting candidates who are dropped. Otherwise, the math simply won’t save them from being dropped off the ballot in the third count.

Here’s how third-round support is currently shaking out:

1. Mark Carney
2. Chrystia Freeland (-9)
3. Karina Gould (-22)

While Gould does have more support from Dhalla and Baylis’ voters than the two frontrunners, that support is not large enough to leapfrog Freeland. No candidate would win a majority and Gould would be dropped off the ballot.

Final Round Support

At this point the race would come to a head-to-head showdown between Carney and Freeland. According to Mainstreet’s data, and with her being dropped from the final round of counting, almost the entirety of Gould’s supporters would then move over to Carney.

Here’s how final-round support is currently shaking out:

1. Mark Carney
2. Chrystia Freeland (-28)

It would be a clear and substantial victory for Carney, with Gould and her supporters playing kingmaker.

What Is Driving Voters

Mainstreet also added in some bonus information about what voters are looking for in each of the candidates. A large majority are primarily basing their choice on electability. Here’s how it breaks down:

1. Who can win
2. Who reflects our values (-42)
3. Who has the best policies (-43)
4. Who represents change (-50)
5. Who communicates best (-52)
6. Who represents generational change (-55)

Broader polling of the electorate has shown the Liberal Party now polling neck-and-neck with the Conservatives if Carney is chosen as party leader. It’s no wonder than that so many Liberal voters are backing him for leader given he is perceived as the most likely to close the gap.

Values and policies are next on the list but much lower in importance. Carney’s top two opponents have been lapping him when it comes to releasing policy but it’s clear that voters aren’t taking that much notice because it’s not as big of a priority as winning is.

Despite the 2025 campaign long being framed as a change election, Liberal voters aren’t that interested in veering away from the path the party has been on. That’s bad news for Baylis and Dhalla who are running outsider campaigns in the hopes that voters are looking for something different after nearly a decade of Trudeau Liberalism. That’s also bad news for Freeland who has been trying to put daylight between herself and Trudeau (which, in my opinion, was never going to work given they have essentially co-led the country for years).

Finally, after a summer of the Liberal Caucus claiming that communication was the primary reason behind their slumping poll numbers, Liberal voters don’t seem to be ranking that as very high on their must-haves list for this leadership race. I tend to agree with Caucus and think the frontrunner has yet to prove himself on this front. Poilievre, by comparison, is a strong communicator and this could diminish Carney’s electability once they are compared side by side.

Finally, the issue of generational change hasn’t really caught on with Liberal voters in a way that would benefit Gould. That’s not that surprising when you consider the fact that Trudeau is younger than the frontrunners and neither of them seem all that old compared to some world leaders currently in office.

What It All Means

The poll is generally good news for Carney, though it isn’t the easy first-round, nearly-unanimous victory he’s been portrayed as having so far in this race. The danger for him is that if he stumbles in the debates, he could lose momentum, and fail to clinch things on voting weekend. It’s happened to other frontrunners in the past.

The poll is also good news for Gould who at worst would be kingmaker and at best is building critical later-round support ahead of the two leadership debates taking place ten days from now. The goal for her should be to get into striking distance of Freeland by taking over her support, winning over enough of Dhalla and Baylis’ support that she can avoid dropping off the ballot after the third round of counting, and then work to win Freeland’s remaining voters second choice support. Right now, more of Freeland’s supporters would move to Carney than to Gould. The debates will be essential for her if she’s going to pull this off.

The poll is not great for Freeland. While she’s comfortably in second, she’s far enough back from Carney that she currently can’t overtake him with the support of voters from the fourth and fifth place candidates. Even if she could, almost none of them are backing her. Most concerning is the fact almost none of Gould’s supporters would move to her over Carney in a final head-to-head. And unlike Gould, who is less well-known, the added visibility brought by the debates won’t be as big a boost for Freeland given Liberal voters already know her well and have made up their minds about her one way or the other.

Having said all that, this is just a poll. Things can shift over the next three weeks and the debates remain a wildcard when it comes to predicting the outcome of this race. In the meantime, you can stay up to date with how the race is playing out by following my trackers.

Other Content: To learn more about the rules of the race, visit my leadership “Rules Explainer”. To follow along with the candidates’ media engagement, check out my “Chief Messenger” communications tracker. To learn more about their policy positions, visit my “Head Wonk” leadership policy cheat sheet.

Theresa has served as the Communications Coordinator for the Ontario Liberal Party, the VP Communications for the Ontario Women’s Liberal Commission, the Director of Communications to Ontario Deputy Premier Deb Matthews, and an election-speechwriter for former Premier Kathleen Wynne. As a member of ‘Team Neutral’, she helped manage the 2013 and 2020 OLP Leadership races.